Local

ALACHUA COUNTY ‒ On Monday Aug. 31, schools in Alachua County reopened for in-person classes for the first time since mid-March. Due to COVID-19, the last semester of the 2019-20 school year was taught virtually online as educators scrambled to rethink teaching delivery.

The Class of 2020 graduated in the spring with limited graduation ceremonies and proms and many of the other activities traditionally associated with the transition from school to adulthood. For students with more years to go, there is an uncertainty of whether there will be a return to traditional in class education.

This year, back to school has taken on new meaning as the School Board of Alachua County (SBAC) is offering several options that have been approved by the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE). In addition to brick and mortar teaching, the SBAC offers the new Alachua Digital Academy.

Through the Academy, students will receive live lessons provided by teachers from their school of enrollment. The model allows them to interact with their classmates online, and their daily schedule mirrors the regular school schedule. Students are provided with devices if they don’t have them, and the district will work with families to obtain Internet access. Digital Academy students also have access to free meals and other programs and services.

A third instructional option for local families is the Alachua eSchool, which allows students to learn material and complete coursework on their own schedule and pace without live lessons. The eSchool has been in existence for eight years and during the last school year served about 3,000 full and part-time students.

In July, the SBAC asked parents to vote on which method they preferred. Of those who responded, about 41 percent selected the traditional in-person model, 41 percent selected the Digital Academy and 18 percent chose the eSchool. The SBAC is offering all three options and is working to balance safety and health concerns while maintaining effective in-class teaching for bricks and mortar learning. This ‘traditional’ model includes significant health and safety protocols, including but not limited to mandatory masks, intensive cleaning/sanitizing, and strategies to promote as much social distancing as possible.

The district has also been working closely with the Alachua County Health Department and experts from the University of Florida on COVID-related safety protocols, including the steps the district will take if a student or staff member tests positive.

There have been concerns about whether schools could reopen safely and not become a mega breeding ground for COVID infections. Some teachers and staff felt they would be risking their own safety and that of their students if the reopening was done to soon. Teachers in Florida, along with the Florida Education Association (FEA), sued the State to block an emergency order requiring schools to open with in-person instruction. They say, with the high number of coronavirus cases in Florida, the order violates a provision in the Florida Constitution requiring the state to ensure schools are operated safely.

It is especially concerning for the teachers as they deal with multiple classes daily, exposing them to more than just one classroom. In some places, including Alachua County, teachers have organized protests, stating their disagreement and concern about reopening. Initially a judge ruled in the FEA's favor, but then the State asked to move the trial to Tallahassee, which effectively delayed any action to limit the school year opening until after the school's opening date and the mandated in-person classes.

Some other states that have reopened have seen a surge in cases. In Canton, Georgia, the Cherokee County School District reopened on Aug. 3. Within two weeks nearly 1,200 students and staff members in the district had already been ordered to quarantine. Two high schools in that county closed until at least Aug. 31. Several colleges, including the University of North Carolina, are offering only online learning.

For many families, remote learning from home is difficult. Parents with younger students have had to miss work or even lose jobs due to the need to homeschool and babysit children. Some low-income families have trouble gaining access to online learning despite efforts by the school system to provide computers and internet access.

Another factor affecting low-income families is the meals program. For some students the lunch they get at school may be their only or biggest meal. Throughout the end of the last school year and all through the summer, the SBAC made a monumental effort to provide meals to every student. Since the end of March, the district has distributed more than 2.3 million meals to students across Alachua County.

For many older students the isolation and lack of social contact is a major factor in wanting to return to school. But risks remain and only time will tell both if reopening was safe and effective and whether the state and federal governments are providing accurate information for the schools and parents to make an informed choice on which method to choose.

The SBAC has tried to make the school as safe as possible with strict regulations on mandatory masks for students and staff as well maintaining social distancing, temperature checks and removing anyone who shows symptoms.

At Santa Fe High School, 71 percent of the students have chosen the brick and mortar option, higher than the average. Principal Dr. Timothy Wright says they have set up traffic flow patterns so all students move in one direction with northbound students using the main front walkway and southbound students using the back walkway.

“Each teacher has a temperature gauge to test students as they enter the classroom and chairs are distanced six feet apart.” Said Wright. “For lunch time, we are serving boxed lunches and have put markers on seats to maintain the social distance as well as set up tables outside. In the more narrow interior walkways, we have signs directing students to walk to their right to keep lines from intermingling from different directions.”

At Irby Elementary, Principal Tanya Floyd said they have about 50 percent of their students returning for in-class learning. While the rules for social distancing and masks are the same as other schools, Floyd said that they are also trying to make it less about regulations and more about learning to help calm the fears of the younger students. “We are trying to put more emphasis on colorful signs and making mask wearing part of the education process rather than regulations.”

While the schools are trying to do as much as possible to safeguard staff and students, they are also emphasizing that parents also have a responsibility in the process. The SBAC website has a list of procedures parents should follow every day before sending their children to school.

Parents are asked to do a temperature check each morning and if it is 100.4 or above the student should not go to school. Other signs to look for are chills, new cough or shortness of breath, unusual fatigue, muscle or body aches, new onset of severe headaches, especially with a fever, new loss of sense of taste or smell, sore throat, non-allergy congestion or runny nose, diarrhea, vomiting or abdominal pain.

Students who have had significant exposure (within six feet for at least 15 minutes) with someone who has COVID-19 may return to school 14 days after their exposure as long as they have no fever or other symptoms or they have a documented negative test result on the ninth day after their exposure.

Students who have tested positive for COVID-19 may return to school when they have gone 24 hours without a fever (and without the use of fever-reducing medicines), their symptoms have improved and it has been at least 10 days since the test was administered. More information can be found at the SBAC website at https://www.sbac.edu/

The SBAC believes the reopening can work as long as the schools, parents, health officials and the State government work together to maintain the necessary safeguards and provide accurate information. Whether the reopening will work or be a breeding ground for a surge of cases will only be determined by what happens within the next two weeks, which is the average time for an infected person to show symptoms.

#     #     #

Email rcarson@

alachuatoday.com

NEWBERRY ‒ Newberry city commissioners turned their attention to wastewater improvements at the Aug, 24 City Commission meeting. The commission approved a bid of $726,004, which includes the base bid of $637,727 and the addition of Alternate One at $88,277 to relocate Lift Station #1 and establish a wet station on higher ground.

Alternate One was described by Director of Utilities and Public Works Jamie JoneJones as including road resurfacing of Southwest 2^nd Avenue from Southwest 254^th Street to Southwest 258^th Street.

Lift Station #1 is located at the intersection of Southwest 255^th Street and Southwest 2^nd Avenue. It was constructed in 1976 and is the only dry well-style lift station in the City’s wastewater system. “It receives approximately 50 percent of all wastewater generated in the system prior to pumping it to the wastewater treatment facility,” said Jones. Jones said that the intersection floods and allows stormwater into the wastewater system with the additional water overwhelming the pumps and potentially causing a sanitary sewer overflow.

The location is also plagued by limited right-of-way as the lift station is located within five feet of the travel lane of Southwest 2^nd Avenue and within 20 feet of a house located at 25455 S.W. 2^nd Avenue. Also, the pumps are located 20 feet below ground in a confined space. “Personnel safety requirements involved in maintenance activities are increased over those that occur in a wet well lift station,” he said.

The City worked with the Alachua County School Board to obtain a new site adjacent to Newberry High School. Currently, it is adjacent to the school’s football field. In January 2019 the School Board agreed to transfer ownership of the 50-ft. x 50-ft. lot to the City in exchange for facilitating a future wastewater/water connection point for construction of restrooms adjacent to the football stadium.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) issued construction permits in May 2019. Since the project included removing a portion of Southwest 2^nd Avenue, an add alternate was developed to incorporate an additional 1,900 feet of roadwork as part of the City’s annual road resurfacing plan.

Jones explained that the four bids received for the project were evaluated by the engineer and City staff and rejected as the bid amounts were inconsistent. Bidders were notified and the scope of services was reworked and a second request for bids was issued.

Five bids were received the second time and Andrews Paving, Inc. submitted the lowest responsive and responsible bid. Funding will be from a combination of sources including development fees, the General Fund,and the Local Option Gas Tax.

Although no exact start date was mentioned during the meeting, Jones said that he anticipates starting as soon as possible. “Once the contract is executed Andrews will provide a proposed construction schedule for City approval.”

#     #     #

Email cwalker@

alachuatoday.com

ALACHUA ‒ A local biotech company, Ology Bioservices Inc., has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland to produce COVID-19 vaccines once it is developed. The contract ceiling value is $106.3 million, of which $53.1 million was obligated at the time of award and the rest to come once a vaccine has been approved and production begins.

Ology Bioservices will manage the reservation of production capacity of approximately 186,840,000 doses of critical vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19. This work is in support of the Operation Warp Speed response to the ongoing pandemic.

Operation Warp Speed (OWS) is a government program that aims to deliver 300 million doses of a safe, effective vaccine for COVID-19 by January 2021, as part of a broader strategy to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

Protocols for the demonstration of safety and efficacy are being aligned, which will allow the trials to proceed more quickly, and the protocols for the trials will be overseen by the federal government, as opposed to traditional public-private partnerships, in which pharmaceutical companies decide on their own protocols.

Rather than eliminating steps from traditional development timelines, steps will proceed simultaneously, such as starting manufacturing of the vaccine at industrial scale well before the demonstration of vaccine efficacy and safety as happens normally.

“Along with producing vaccines and monoclonal antibodies to eventually combat the spread of COVID-19, the team at Ology Bioservices is very proud to support the fill and finishing network as needed by Operation Warp Speed,” said Peter H. Khoury, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Ology Bioservices.

While the program will initiate once a vaccine is developed, most research for a vaccine is still in initial Phase 1 of 3 for clinical trials, and the January 2021 date for production is still uncertain. Vaccines typically require years of research and testing before reaching clinical tests, but scientists are racing to produce by next year under the government push for Operation Warp Speed.

Researchers are testing 36 vaccines in clinical trials on humans, and at least 90 preclinical vaccines are being tested in animals. Typically, the longest phase, is stage 3, because it involves waiting for up to a month to make sure it is permanently effective and not temporary. Many medical experts are concerned that rushing the Phase 3 trials could result in a vaccine that is not effective long term.

Last week, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn alarmed experts when he suggested the regulatory body could approve a vaccine before Phase 3 trials are complete. Many medical experts feel that approving a vaccine before Phase 3 trials are complete is not only unprecedented, but it’s also potentially unsafe. Experts have warned the Phase 3 process cannot be condensed because of the length of time needed to observe the effects of the inoculation’s safety and durability, which are governed by regulation. By getting the $53.1 million award now, Ology Bioservices can get prepared to begin immediate production once the vaccine is approved.

Ology Bioservices was founded as Nanotherapeutics in 1999 as an integrated biopharmaceutical company with a focus on development and manufacturing, as well as having expertise in preclinical and clinical development, formulation optimization, and of biopharmaceutical products, medical devices and to develop new drug delivery technologies and increase the efficacy of existing drugs.

Much of their research is funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) to come up with vaccines and countermeasures for epidemics like Malaria and Ebola as well as possible chemical and biological weapons that could be used against military troops.

In March 2013, the DoD awarded Nanotherapeutics, a contract to provide all the core services necessary to establish a Medical Countermeasures Advanced Development and Manufacturing (MCM ADM) facility dedicated to meet the specific needs of the DoD. The 10-year, $400 million-plus contract provided funding for the construction of a 183,000-square foot facility in Alachua as well as continued research and production.

In addition to government and DOD contracts, Ology Bio has also expanded into the commercial field with a grant from the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund to develop a vaccine candidate for combating Malaria. The DoD has also awarded an $8.4 million contract to Ology to manufacture an anti-Ebola monoclonal antibody.

In July 2020 they received a biologics contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), from the Department of Defense (DOD), through the Joint Science and Technology Office of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), for three biomanufacturing contracts with a combined value of more than $16 million. To date the company has been granted over $500 million in government contracts not including the new contract for COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing. The rest of the COVID award will be issued once a vaccine has been established and production can begin.

#     #     #

Email rcarson@

alachuatoday.com

GAINESVILLE – Archer’s Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Cemetery (BME) has received funding to improve cemetery grounds. The Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Cemetery was established in 1875 as part of the Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Church, built by freed slaves. According to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, there have been at least 80 known burials, the earliest of which possibly belonged to former slaves of the Cottonwood Plantation in Archer or the Haile Plantation in Gainesville.

The cemetery has been undergoing restoration since 1999, when the Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Cemetery Restoration Organization (BMECRO) held its first cleanup project. Ever since, it has struggled to bring the total restoration to fruition. In 2019, Keep Alachua County Beautiful grant funds went toward further cleanup and restoration, particularly to manage the debris from Hurricane Irma.

The BME Cemetery does not properly honor those who lie there, namely the African American slaves who hold great historical importance in North Central Florida and the United States. Headstones are shattered, worn and weathered, erasing the significance of the inscriptions. From a closer look, headstones show birth dates as early as 1822, about 43 years before slavery was abolished. Dead tree removal is necessary in order to prevent further damage to the headstones and will pave a pathway to further restoration efforts such as the introduction of native plant species.

The Weyerhaeuser Giving Fund awarded Keep Alachua County Beautiful with $2,000 toward the restoration of the historic cemetery. Keep Alachua County Beautiful and this project have a focus on environmental stewardship and restoring significant historical areas in Alachua County. The $2,000 will be directed toward necessary maintenance, specifically dead tree removal in the cemetery.

The BME Cemetery was added to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation 2019 Florida’s “11 to Save” List in May of 2019. The purpose of the list is to increase public awareness and appreciation of endangered historic sites in Florida. The cemetery’s position on the list emphasizes its important cultural and historical value in the state.

#     #     #

Email editor@

alachuatoday.com

HIGH SPRINGS ‒ City Manager Joel DeCoursey, Jr. has tendered his resignation effective Nov. 30.

In his letter of resignation, he said, “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work in this position for the last year. I have truly been blessed and I thoroughly enjoyed working here, as well as, serving the citizens of this great community. I enjoyed the many opportunities you have given me. This is a wonderful team to work with. However, I have committed to one year of service and I have fulfilled my obligation. It is time for a new set of eyes to lead the city into the future.”

DeCoursey was sworn in as interim city manager on Aug. 29, 2019, to replace outgoing City Manager Ed Booth. Contract negotiations between the city attorney and DeCoursey began and the employment agreement was approved during the Sept. 12, 2019, City Commission meeting.

DeCoursey previously served as the Chief of Police for the City of High Springs for nearly four years. He served two separate stints with the City of Alachua prior to that. He served as a police officer for Alachua from December 1988 – August 1990. In early 2008, while employed by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ASO), he was assigned to the position of Interim Chief of Police. He eventually resigned his position with ASO to become Chief of Police with the City of Alachua on July 31, 2008. He served in that capacity until he resigned on June 25, 2015.

Commissioners and the city attorney thanked DeCoursey for his service to the City, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, and wished him well in his new endeavors.

Commissioners subsequently approved an advertisement for a new city manager at the Aug. 27 meeting. The first advertisement is scheduled to appear in a Florida League of Cities publication. The requirements for the position are the same as previously advertised when Booth left the position.

Applications may be obtained online at highsprings.us. Applications, a cover letter and resume’ must be returned to City Clerk Jenny Parham at 23718 W. US Highway 27, High Springs, FL 32643 or emailed to jparham@highsprings.us by 4:30 p.m., Oct. 8.

Commissioner Scott Jamison commented that the Commission needs to consider how to handle the fact that a new City Manager would likely not want to start until the first of the year, thereby leaving the City without a manager for two months. “This isn’t something we need to discuss tonight, but it is something we should consider in the near future,” he said.

Briefly, applicant requirements include a Bachelor’s Degree with five years of municipal government experience with an educational emphasis in public administration. An equivalent combination of training and experience may be considered. Professional managerial or governmental financial experience may be substituted on a year-for-year basis for the education and experience requirements.

The starting salary is $90,000 - $100,000 annually with benefits, which include a vehicle allowance and retirement benefits through the Florida Retirement System, insurance coverage and relocation costs of up to $4,000. The successful applicant must ultimately reside in the City of High Springs.

Application screening will begin on Oct. 12. The top five finalists will be selected on Oct. 22 and interviews will be conducted via Zoom on Oct. 27.

#     #     #

Email cwalker@

alachuatoday.com

NEWBERRY ‒ The Newberry City Commission is considering strengthening the City’s whistleblower procedures. A legislative public hearing was held on Aug. 24 on first reading of Ordinance 2020-12 that establishes an administrative procedure for employees and others who report illegality, mismanagement, malfeasance, waste or fraud on the part of City employees, agents or contractors.

Commissioners unanimously approved the measure on first reading. It is anticipated that it will be heard again on second and final reading during the first City Commission meeting in September.

Director of Finance and Administration Dallas Lee presented an overview of the proposed ordinance and explained that this ordinance codifies the rules that are already in place with the City on this issue.

In his explanation of the “Whistle-blower’s Act,” Lee said that it provides protections to people who disclose information regarding certain types of behaviors. “The Act provides for the establishment, by local ordinance, of an administrative procedure to permit disclosure of complaints and protect those persons making disclosure from retaliation. Further,” said Lee, “the Act also provides that when a local government adopts a local ordinance establishing such administrative procedures, that the local government will have an opportunity to address complaints locally instead of proceeding directly to court.”

State statute provides that even though the City has adopted policies about Confidential Reporting, state statute provides that “if these policies are adopted by ordinance then both the City and employee receive additional protections.”

Lee explained that it is in the City’s best interest to have the first opportunity to review and address allegations by its employees, agents or contractors and exhaust all administrative means necessary prior to moving forward with allegations. “We want to redress grievances and ensure that operations are always conducted with integrity and responsive to the needs of the citizens of Newberry,” said Lee.

Lee said that adoption of the ordinance allows employees an avenue to have concerns addressed without the expense and time of litigation falling to the employee. “The ordinance also empowers employees to disclose information of unlawful activity or malfeasance to the appropriate employees with assurances the employee will not be retaliated against, or provides recourse for any such retaliation,” said Lee.

This ordinance establishes a new section of code creating a procedure to handle confidential reporting complaints and legal protections for the complainant.

#     #     #

Email cwalker@

alachuatoday.com